"If you're going to make a tree, for instance, you have to copy a real tree. No one can 'make up' a tree because every tree has an inherent logic in the way it branches. And I've discovered that no one can make up a rock. I found that out in Paths of Glory. We had to copy rocks, but every rock also has an inherent logic you're not aware of until you see a fake rock. Every detail looks right, but something's wrong." The complete Stanley Kubrick Rolling Stone interview from 1987.
jc-06.10.16

A 30-minute documentary on Kubrick cinematographer and camera operator, John Alcott, who took over on 2001 after Geoffrey Unsworth left and shot Barry Lyndon: Six Kinds of Light. Via No Film School.
sd-03.22.16

"In The 2001 File, Frayling places Lange's work within the context of the time and also looks at how his science-fiction designs have influenced real designs of the present – even five decades on, the designs for 2001 appear remarkably modern." Ordered.
jc-01.13.16

"Fifty years ago this week, six astronauts posed on the moon for a selfie-ish photograph next to a newly uncovered three million-year old alien artifact, a towering sheer black monolith, one that was about to set us on course for an encounter with the infinite." Gerry Flahive on 2001.jc-12.30.15

"When, at last, something happens which you know is worth filming, that is the time to decide how to shoot it. It is almost but not quite true to say that when something really exciting and worthwhile is happening, it doesn't matter how you shoot it." Kubrick on Barry Lyndon.jc-04.15.15

"September 7. Stanley quite happy: 'We're in fantastic shape.' He has made up a 100 item questionnaire about our astronauts, e.g. do they sleep in their pajamas, what do they eat for breakfast, etc." Excerpts from Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 Diary.
jc-01.26.15

"I've been watching 2001: A Space Odyessy regularly for four decades, but it wasn't until a few years ago I started thinking about touching it, and then over the holidays I decided to make my move." Soderbergh on the film and his re-edit.
jc-01.14.15

"I think my favorite scene was where I'm dismantling HAL's brain. It reminded me a bit of a famous movie and also play called Of Mice and Men when Lenny is speaking with George regarding their plans to start a farm." Keir Dullea's AMA.
jc-11.26.14

Local note. The Music Box Theater's Son Of 70mm Film Festival starts July 11th and features Lawrence of Arabia, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, World and 2001. If it's the same beautiful print of 2001 they showed last time, it's mandatory viewing, especially if you've never seen it projected.
jc-06.24.14

Kubrick's type and titles stripped down and surveyed by Christian Annyas.
jc-04.28.14

I'm sort of difficult to buy presents for. But not always.
jc-04.25.14

"Then one evening I passed the bookshelf, glanced at the paperback still patiently waiting on the shelf, and picked it up. I started reading the book and finished it in one sitting." Kubrick Country, by Penelope Houston, Saturday Review, December 1971. An interview coinciding with the release of Clockwork. Via Cinephilia.
jc-04.09.14

"If you're going to make a tree, for instance, you have to copy a real tree. No one can 'make up' a tree because every tree has an inherent logic in the way it branches. And I've discovered that no one can make up a rock. I found that out in Paths of Glory. We had to copy rocks, but every rock also has an inherent logic you're not aware of until you see a fake rock. Every detail looks right, but something's wrong." The complete Stanley Kubrick Rolling Stone interview from 1987. Thanks David.
jc-01.29.14

Christian Annyas asks, "It's become common knowledge that Stanley Kubrick was a Futura fan. But did he use it very often?" Here's all the type isolated and in context.
jc-01.15.14

"The point isn't that either man's style is superior to the other. It's that they're so completely incompatible, so utterly at odds with one another, that it staggers the imagination that one man would be tasked to adapt and continue the work of the other." For more on Kirby's 2001 see an excerpt from The Weirdest Sc-Fi Comic Ever Made. by Julian Darius.
jc-01.08.14

The Aliens That Almost Were by Simone Odino. A great, illustrated piece at 2001 Italia on Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's research on how to depict extra-terrestials on film. Via Daring Fireball.
jc-10.18.13

"I spent weeks being chased through fields by bloody bulls. I was going crazy but this was Stanley's character - with all his fears and anxieties he was relentless." Brilliant set designer Ken Adam shares some memories of Stanley Kubrick with Vincent Dowd.
jc-08.16.13

"A Clockwork Orange is my current favourite. I was very predisposed against the film. After seeing it, I realize it is the only movie about what the modern world really means." —Luis Buñuel and others on SK.
jc-07.26.13

"What (the theories expressed in Room 237) lacked was a 'neurophenomenological' overview to make them comprehensible on the level Kubrick intended. The movie was no less than 'a primitive gateway to an entirely different mode of cognition beyond the limitations of speech and the written alphabet,' McLeod told me." Inside the Crowded Cult of The Shining Theorists.kg-03.24.13

"One project under consideration was a film set during the American Civil War, following Col. John S. Mosby who seeks justice after Custer hangs his men. A script was co-written by Kubrick and Civil War historian Shelby Foote..." Kevin Jagernauth on The Lost & Unmade Projects of Stanley Kubrick.
jc-03.04.13

Related. "Tony Frewin was Kubrick's assistant from 1965 until the director died (and beyond). I called him up for a first-hand account of what it was like to be in Kubrick's Napoleonic vortex." A Lot of Work, Very Little Actual Movie, by Alex Godfrey.
jc-03.04.13

An amazing frame from Jack Kirby's adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey.jc-02.21.13

If you went to the original London premiere of 2001: A Space Oddyssey in 1968 you would have been handed this printed program. It's historically significant for Kubrick freaks like ourselves and it's a great piece of design. Make sure to click on "contact sheets" to see the original document.
kg-02.21.13

Related to the last. "In late 1963 for the film's finale Director Stanley Kubrick spent almost two weeks shooting a War Room custard-pie fight at Stage B Shepperton but the result was later deleted from the final cut. These stills give us a glimpse of what this 'cut scene' may have looked like." The pie-fight was in Terry Southern's first draft of the script too.
jc-01.30.13

Related to the last. "As we say in English, 'We're in deep shit.'" Stanley Kubrick: The Moon Landing, Gavin Rothery gathers the segments of William Karel's excellent satire all in one place.
jc-01.22.13

Plumbing Stanley Kubrick is a long, rambling memoir full of surprises, by Ian Watson, who
worked for two years with Kubrick on story development for the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Via Cinephilia & Beyond.
jc-01.07.13

"Does IBM know that one of the main themes of the story is a psychotic computer? I don't want to get anyone in trouble, and I don't want them to feel they have been swindled. Please give me the exact status of things with IBM. Best regards, Stanley."
jc-01.04.13

Hardy Amies was the costume designer for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and has produced a short documentary on the collaboration. Thanks Nalden.
jc-12.20.12

"I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed." Be a bit more specific with the Strangelove Slide Rule, a nuclear bomb effects computer from John Walker.
jc-11.15.12

"In early 1963 Arthur Fellig, better known to time, tide and memory as Weegee, journeyed to Shepperton Studios in Merrie England to document, however briefly, the production of Stanley Kubrick's mirth-encrusted exploration of human dread, Dr. Strangelove." Terrific candid shots.
jc-11.15.12

"A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later." A lovely edit inspired by this Kubrick quote by SomersetVII.
jc-11.05.12

"A famous Kubrick sentence is, 'Never try to explain something that you don't understand yourself.' If you make such a film, then just go all the way. And he did." As The Shining is rereleased in the UK, Kubrick's producer Jan Harlan discusses the genesis of this 'symphony in schizophrenia.'jc-11.01.12

"Hacking down the door with an axe was easy - all Jack had to do was make the wood crack well." Kate Abbott interviews Jan Harlan and Joe Turkel who played Lloyd, on the making of The Shining.jc-10.31.12

These images from 1985's The Complete Airbrush and Photo-Retouching Manual by Peter Owen & John Sutcliffe are of particular interest to fans of The Shining. Via The Overlook Hotel, of course.
jc-10.24.12

"And it's not just a matter of noticing things other people miss, because that can be done by anyone who's perceptive; it's a matter of noticing things that the director included to indicate his true, undisclosed intention. In other words, it's not an interpretive reading — it's an inflexible, clandestine reality that matters way more than anything else. And it's usually insane." Chuck Klosterman reviews Room 237 for Grantland.
jc-10.18.12

Related to the last, you knew Unkrich was the caretaker at The Overlook Hotel didn't you?
jc-10.10.12

"I've seen this cog-eyed image on fly-posters in Colombia, on t-shirts in Turkey, and put to a variety of uses in Canada, Los Angeles and New York." Design as Virus, by John Coulthart. David Pelham's cover for Clockwork Orange.jc-10.08.12

"I wish they had made trading cards for The Shining. Since they didn't, I made my own."jc-09.17.12

"With one unedited pull-back shot, minimal but effective acting, a few sentences of voice-over, some great production design, and a cold, creepy soundtrack, we're quickly initiated into the look, themes and content of the rest of the film, and all in a little over 2 minutes." Deconstructing Clockwork, by Simon Powell.
jc-09.01.12

"Stanley Kubrick was a friend of mine, insofar as people like Stanley have friends, and as if there are any people like Stanley now. Famously reclusive, as I'm sure you've heard, he was in fact a complete failure as a recluse, unless you believe that a recluse is simply someone who seldom leaves his house." That's the lede from Michael Herr's 1999 Vanity Fair article on SK, which is worth a relink for many reasons, not the least of which is the terrific photo that kicks it off.
jc-07.26.12

When Clockwork was released in the USA in 1972, this tabloid newspaper, The Orange Times, was presented to audiences. It would make a fine companion piece to the original cinema program from the 1968 London premiere of 2001.jc-07.26.12

Neil Hall went Looking for Stanley and photographed Kubrick's film locations."His choices enabled him to turn the mundane into the sublime - a collection of disparate corners of Britain united by one filmmaker's vision."
jc-07.26.12

"The still photographer on The Shining, Murray Close, took a wonderful picture of Stanley standing in front of the smoldering remains, and he had a wonderful smile on his face. I saw a print of that, but Murray was forbidden to have that picture published." Kubrick's Wonderful, Forbidden Smile, from Michael Heilemann. I think this is now my favorite photo of SK ever.
jc-07.26.12

Regarding printed film programs. If you went to the original London premiere of 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 you would have been handed this printed program. It's historically significant for Kubrick freaks like ourselves and it's a great piece of design. Make sure to click on "contact sheets" to see the original document.
jc-07.10.12

"When, at last, something happens which you know is worth filming, that is the time to decide how to shoot it. It is almost but not quite true to say that when something really exciting and worthwhile is happening, it doesn't matter how you shoot it." Kubrick on Barry Lyndon, from Kubrick by Michel Ciment.
jc-05.01.12

Related to the last. The definitive article on the making of 2001 is from Cinefex Magazine. The special effects and modeling work was done before reliable motion-control even existed and some wireframe animations on the Discovery's control screens were shot using real wire. Unfortunately the text of the piece is not available online, but surprisingly, backorders of Issue 85 from April 2001 are still available.
jc-04.02.12

One more. "...every time you see a gang walking along in slow-motion, a speeded-up party scene, a slow pan out from a closeup of a face, a torture scene set to cheerful music, the chances are it was plundered from Kubrick's original." The Droog Rides Again, by Steve Rose.
jc-02.16.12

"But before running through our evening checklist, I wanted to confirm a time for the Newsweek shoot. Stanley didn't look up from his desk, 'Tell them I'll take the picture. And I'll need their specs.'" How Stanley Kubrick Shot His Own Newsweek Cover.
jc-02.10.12

"...a compelling work of art that acts as a kind of mirror, especially for thoughtful people, who see aspects of themselves that are among the most precious things they have experienced... That's in the best sense. In some cases it might also be a paranoia that they want to expurgate in some way." Director Rodney Ascher on Room 237, a new feature documentary aiming to decipher Kubrick's The Shining.jc-01.26.12

"In six days God created the heavens and the earth. On the seventh day, Stanley Kubrick sent everything back for modifications." So begins
Dark Side of The Moon, William Karel's French mockumentary on Kubrick faking the moon landings. Bookmark to watch in its entirety if you haven't seen it. Great ominous tone to the whole thing.
jc-12.06.11

"The movie is so completely absorbed in its own problems, its use of color and space, its fanatical devotion to science-fiction detail, that it is somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring." Renata Adler's 1968 NYT review of 2001.jc-12.05.11

Related to the last. "I could have used a few more superlatives." Updated and expanded, Volto von Libro has collected some great stuff surrounding Stanley Kubrick's interview with Jeremy Bernstein from 1966. First there's the interview itself, roughly 75 minutes of audio. Plus Bernstein's New Yorker profile of SK from November, 1966. An auction sheet offering the text of the profile, marked up by SK and finally a great personal memoir of the time from Bernstein.
jc-11.21.11

From Shaun Usher, "On this day, 40 years ago, Stanley Kubrick wrote this proposal for his doomed Napoleon biopic."
jc-10.20.11

Photos by Jack Torrance? Stunning photos, shot and "aged" by William Anthony, who writes, "I had a great time photographing The Overlook Hotel as Jack in 1921. I hope to make a trip to The Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite to do the same with interiors someday." Can't wait for that. Via Maria Popova.
jc-10.04.11

A clip of the quick 2001 scene from the most recent episode of Community.
sd-09.27.11

Relink for Coop. "Thus Spake Zarathustra," the music from the title sequence of 2001 A Space Odysseyperformed by a school orchestra. If this doesn't get your Thursday started right, nothing will.
jc-09.08.11

Long, fascinating Frieze interview with Max Mathews, who passed away last month. The "father of computer music," Mathews shares his enthusiasm and career including a bit about 2001 and HAL singing "Daisy." Via Mubi.
jc-05.10.11

A newly restored Clockwork print, the premiere of Once Upon a Time... Clockwork Orange, a new film by Antoine de Gaudemar, and lots of ancillary panels and appearances are scheduled as part of Cannes 2011 Classics Program.
jc-04.26.11

"Tony Frewin was Kubrick's assistant from 1965 until the director died (and beyond). I called him up for a first-hand account of what it was like to be in Kubrick's Napoleonic vortex." A Lot of Work, Very Little Actual Movie, by Alex Godfrey.
jc-04.14.11

Immersive Cocoon 2011. "This spec teaser reveals an evolution in computing interaction, within a setting inspired by the penultimate scene from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey." Wow, with Keir Dullea and everything. Super clean. An admirable job. But something tells me SK would have been furious seeing this and that leaves me feeling uneasy.
jc-04.12.11

"I immersed myself in 2001: A Space Odyssey for a week, watching the film twice along with all the 'making of' footage and documentaries, researching concept art and posters online, and doing a bunch of sketching. I wanted the poster to have a subtle touch, hit the theme of the film, yet still have a Signalnoise flavor."
dw-02.23.11

"3. It's impossible to tell you what I'm going to do except to say that I expect to make the best movie ever made." A couple Letters of Note, first one from Audrey Hepburn to Stanley Kubrick and then, a draft of a letter from SK about Napoleon.jc-01.06.11

Some great Barry Lyndon ephemera and observations from Little Augery including a sweet promotional line drawing of a dueling pistol by who knows who for who knows what. Plus, some nice side by side comparisons of film frames and paintings by Hogarth, Thackeray and Watteau.
jc-12.05.10

"I don't know how many times they shot the blood in the elevator. Somebody told me they had been shooting that ever since the shoot first started the year before. They shot it three times while I was there. About every ten days they would shoot it again..." Jane Hu asks, Is the Trailer for The Shining the Actual Film?jc-12.05.10

"I directed two of these short form pieces to accompany History Channel's show '1968.' It was fun, they allowed me to choose my own subject so I went with Keir Dullea, star of 2001: A Space Odyssey. He had us to his home and we made this little piece." Director Sean Dunne. Thanks a bunch to Volto von Libro.
jc-07.08.10

"Like all visionaries, he spoke the truth. And no matter how comfortable we think we are with the truth, it always comes as a profound shock when we're forced to meet it face-to-face." Scorsese on Kubrick.
jc-06.17.10

Abstract: "In Stanley Kubrick's motion picture 2001: A Space Odyssey, Heywood Floyd, chairman of the National Council of Astronautics (NCA), orchestrates a false flag alien artifact discovery. The alleged discovery of a black monolith buried 40 feet below the surface of the moon is in fact staged by Dr. Floyd and fellow members of the NCA as justification for the continued support of the NCA's monolith-chasing missions, including the Discovery mission to Jupiter." This is a new one to me, Joe Bisdin's theory on 2001. Also, "Heywood Floyd is an anagram for defy holy wood."
jc-06.04.10

"Some shots you might need a couple of thousand, and then some CGI. Although I don't think he would have automatically thought, 'Let's CGI everything.'" Vice's interview with Tony Frewin about Kubrick's Napoleon. Thanks Henry.
sd-02.15.10

Youtube clips from great '80s BBC sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, starring Leonard Rossiter. As JC will tell you, Rossiter appears in 2001 and Barry Lyndon.
bb-01.29.10

Ten years on, Todd Raviotta updates his excellent personal essay on Eyes Wide Shut which includes a telling quote from SK, "Critical opinion on my films has always been salvaged by what I would call subsequent critical opinion."
jc-07.16.09

"...a film meant to be watched both forwards and backwards. The human mind may find ways of playing it backwards subconsciously. Tricks are used to play with your memory of standard cinema convention."
Long, sprawling essay on physical cosmologies of The Shining.jc-03.25.09

"For his largest Manhattan property -- the Bowery Hotel, in the East Village -- Mr. MacPherson turned to an even more surprising source: Stanley Kubrick's The Shining."Hotel designs With cinematic flavor. Thanks Matt.
jc-02.16.09

"In 1980, Stanley Kubrick came to the Timberline Lodge to film one of the all-time great horror classics, The Shining. In the film, Jack Nicholson slowly loses his grasp on reality and loses himself in a hallucination of a 1920s era ball. Twenty-Eight years later, Nike Sportswear and Fantastic Fest have joined forces to recreate the very same ball at the very same lodge." Come Play With Us.
ms-10.08.08

"I've spent the past three hours on my knees on the floor working out the enclosed review ad slots. I think they make sense and should look very strong with nice, chunky bold type or its equivalent." From a letter from Stanley Kubrick to an ad executive, about Clockwork promotion.
jc-07.11.08

"By take 50 or 60 you start being in this Zen-like state which is really pleasurable because you have it wired." From a section about shooting The Shining in an interview with Garrett Brown, inventor of the Steadicam.
sd-07.01.08

"Since the light source and the camera lens are precisely aligned on a common axis, the foreground subject exactly 'fits' its own shadow, covering it completely." Front projection tech in 2001, from American Cinematographer.
jc-06.11.08

"...all of a sudden, this mythic work of art became Earthborn. That transition is probably my favorite moment of 2001 now: it's Kubrick deflating the hot air balloon." A perceptive essay by Jamie Stuart on watching 2001 in various formats and under various circumstances.
jc-05.28.08

Still related to the last. our best guess is Aldo Novarese's 1952 Microgramma Bold Extended is the primary font in the HAL data screens. Ten years later, Novarese reworked the idea into the more popular Eurostile.
jc-03.05.08

Related to the last, we did an experimental homage to the HAL data screens in a client project. You can see a bit of it at the beginning of our film Close Enough.jc-03.05.08

The Ministry of Type has some fun with HAL's data screens from 2001. The definitive tech article (Cinefex 85) recounts how they were created. Each individual screen had a corresponding, 16mm projector hidden across from it on the set.
jc-03.05.08

Stanley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures. Jan Harlan's documentary in its entirety. Jack Nicholson, "Everybody pretty much acknowledges he's the man, and I still feel that underrates him."
jc-02.26.08

The Seafarers, Stanley Kubrick's third film and first in color. A dry but interesting (at least to SK geeks) work-for-hire effort from 1953. Rarely seen.
jc-02.01.08

"There is a silence. 'Tony,' I say, 'can I look through the boxes?' I've been coming to the Kubrick house a couple of times a month ever since." Citizen Kubrick by Jon Ronson. A relink suggested by Jeevs and also an excuse to link our big Stuff About Stanley Kubrick archive.
jc-01.31.08

"...events and situations that are most meaningful to people are those in which they are actually involved--and I'm convinced that this sense of personal involvement derives in large part from visual perception." Before they met and wrote Strangelove together, Terry Southern interviewed Stanley Kubrick for Esquire in 1962.
jc-09.20.07

Looking through a box of stuff I found my copy of the best, most in-depth article anywhere on the technical aspects of making 2001. It is, unfortunately not online. But, you can still order the back-issue of Cinefex 85 for fifteen dollars. Required reading.
jc-09.14.07

Jamie Stuart writes to confirm that the announced Kubrick DVDs are new HD transfers as Leon Vitali outlined in his interview with Jamie in the Reeler. Also, it's possible that the shorter European edit of The Shining may be included, as it was SK's final edit. Thanks for the info.
jc-08.23.07

Ollie writes, "The most disturbing thing about this new DVD set is that it will be released in the 'original theatrical aspect ratio.' While this sounds like a very good thing, it is not in line with Kubrick's wishes." See this interview with SK's assistant Leon Vitali and also question 11 in the Visual Memory FAQ. A thorny problem.
jc-08.23.07

New Kubrick DVD releases announced. Via Daring Fireball. Arrgh. The packaging is terrible. Where does that typeface for the 2001 come from? More importantly, are these new transfers? Who supervised? From what neg? Sheesh, the 2001 sleeve gives me a bad feeling about the whole thing. Hope I'm wrong. Bet I'm not. (The last "special editions," released in 2001, were a total disaster.)
jc-08.23.07

Tangentially Kubrick related: spent some time today in Estes Park, Colorado at The Stanley Hotel, which was the inspiration for The Shining and was where Stephen King wrote it over a five month period.
sd-08.04.07

Before Terry Southern got involved there was this script for Strangelove which includes the pie-fight and "is framed as a film within a film, made by extraterrestrials, no less." Thanks Dan, prize on the way.
jc-08.03.07

Two Special Lenses for Barry Lyndon or "How the stringent demands of a purist-perfectionist film-maker led to the development of two valuable new cinematographic tools." A great first-hand film tech piece.
jc-06.24.07

"...he used to walk around the set with an Arriflex tube and just change lenses, look around, down, up, move away, move around. Once he found his first shot, he knew he could build the scene from that point." Stanley Kubrick actor and associate Leon Vitali looks back on 30 years of Barry Lyndon. in an exclusive interview in The Reeler.
jc-05.31.07

"In six days God created the heaven and the earth. On the seventh day, Stanley Kubrick sent everything back for modifications." Dark Side of the Moon. Exceptionally well-crafted crackpottery parody. From Mr. Huff.
jc-05.25.07

From the "people who like this sort of thing will find this exactly the sort of thing they like" department. 10,000 words on the editing and "missing" trims from 2001, A Taste of Blue Food by Thomas E, Brown and Phil Vendy.
jc-05.25.07

"The machine made no reply. It had nothing to say." Doing research on something imminent, I came across this transcription of a pre-production (1965) script for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Note the presence of a "Narrator" and the long, expository section at the end.
jc-05.11.07

"The revelation was that this enormous work, this celluloid thing, was made up of minutiae, and I could suddenly see it all, as though finally rubbing my fingers across the rough stone tiles of a mosaic I had only previously seen from afar." Michael Koresky on watching 2001, first on VHS and then projected.
jc-04.17.07

Heidi writes of her Cakework Orange, "When Malcolm McDowell attended a film festival in my small town last autumn, I made a dark chocolate cake saturated with cointreau, glazed with dark chocolate and topped with candied orange clockwork gears."
jc-04.03.07

"A voice-over spares you the cumbersome business of telling the necessary facts of the story through expositional dialogue scenes which can become very tiresome and frequently unconvincing?" SK on Barry Lyndon.jc-02.14.07

Darryl Mason's excellent article from 2000 on Stanley Kubrick's unmade Napoleon. A little effort can still find the incredible screenplay online. Napolean to Tallyrand, "What you are talking about is a gamble on moderation -- when I gamble, I prefer to gamble on force." Yowza.
jc-01.23.07

Apparently SK commissioned a film treatment from noir pulp novelist Jim Thompson in the late 1950s called Lunatic at Large. It may yet be put in front of a camera. [reg req] Thanks Kevin.
jc-10.31.06

"In 1984 Stanley Kubrick placed an ad in Variety requesting audition tapes from unknown actors for his next movie, Full Metal Jacket. This is allegedly one of those tapes." The emphasis is on 'allegedly,' but it's glorious either way. Via Mefi.
jc-10.27.06

Regarding yesterday's post on 'The Cult of Kubrick,' the man's obsession with detail is not lost on his fans. For example, this quick thread, sparked by a flag hanging in the background of the room where Dr. Floyd addresses the meeting about the situation on Clavius, in 2001.
jc-07.11.06

"By remaining intensely private and secretive on the fringes of an industry built upon public exposure, the notion of Kubrick-as-auteur fostered a 'cult of personality' by his very refusal to exploit the limelight occupied more comfortably by other prominent directors." Long-winded but frequently insightful dissertation on The Cult of Kubrick.
jc-07.10.06

Can't post a string of SK links without this. If you went to the original London premiere of 2001: A Space Oddyssey in 1968 you would have been handed this printed program. It's historically significant for Kubrick freaks like ourselves and it's a great piece of design. (Make sure to click on "contact sheets" to see the original document). Let us know if you ever see it on eBay. We won't stop bidding until it is ours.
jc-06.21.06

"Will all the Stanley Kubricks please be quiet and eat their lunch." Colour Me Kubrick (trailer doesn't seem to work on the main page, but does on the "Videos" tab). More info, in English, here.
sd-05.12.06

Shooting script from A Clockwork Orange, a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick. September 7, 1970.
jc-03.21.06

Making the guess that the Pennsylvania Tourism Office is, for some strange, convoluted reason, trying to cash in on that Shining parody edit from a few months back. Either that, or they've just got some interesting ideas for viral vids (either way, it's working, because there's the link, right?)
sd-01.11.06

Saatchi's inside joke targeted towards the seemingly large area where "graphic designers" and "Kubrick fans" overlap on a venn diagram, thanks Kottke and Jamie.
bb-12.07.05

"Stanley not only rigged set-ups; he also cropped his pics to make them more dramatic. His pleasure was the systematic defeat of commonplace expectations..." Frederic Raphael's Guardian review of a new book of Stanley Kubrick's photography, Drama and Shadows. Via GCD.
jc-11.28.05

Continuing with this recent trend of re-edited films, here is Jeff Yorkes' particularly clever "2002", a music vid using "2001" cut to Mellow's "Fantastic." Make sure to also check out the "Citizen Kane" and "Misery" music vids.
sd-11.03.05

John writes, "Just type the magic word "kubrick" into the search field at krusch.com, and be prepared to find out about the many facets of the man mystery kubricks' movies. it includes the remarkable reflections of the 15 year old Margaret Stackhouse on 2001. the entire Krusch FAQ is an asset to any Kubrick maniac." Bill and Leonard both pointed to the Krusch DB too.
jc-10.17.05

Hodaka writes, "Rocked up to Day Two of Rprsnt Design Conference here in Sydney, one of the guest speakers was this guy Pablo Ferro... He's done the titles designs for some of my all-time favourite movies ... Bullit & Dr Strangelove and the list goes on. He also contributed to some of the original trailer promos for A Clockwork Orange."
jc-10.17.05

"Cyberpunk is garage science fiction, so it's not surprising that Pattern Recognition should extend the metaphor to the movies, and posit the existence of a 'Garage Kubrick', a film director turning out cinematic masterpieces somewhere at the other end of an internet link with no more materials than a couple of computers in a curtained room."
sd-10.14.05

Omni Magazine, May 1993. "And when at last, at the end of March 1968, the MGM bosses finally got to see what they'd put their money into - 2001: A Space Odyssey - they couldn't figure out if they were looking at the biggest disaster in MGM's history or at one of the greatest movies ever made."
jc-05.24.05

Great, rambling interview with Terry Southern on co-writing Strangelove and Kubrick. "Stanley's 'writing plan' proved to be a dandy. At five A.M., the car would arrive, a large black Bentley, with a back seat the size of a small train compartment -- two fold-out desk tops, perfect over the-left-shoulder lighting, controlled temperature, dark gray windows. In short, an ideal no-exit writing situation." The result of those sessions.
jc-03.25.05

Beethoven's birtHDay comes around like clockwork. In honor, Dooby-Doo, a few posters (especially this one), and the script. Plus a longish, fascinating interview with SK by Michel Ciment during which he says "Unless you want a pop score, I don't see any reason not to avail yourself of the great orchestral music of the past and present. This music may be used in its correct form or synthesized, as was done with the Beethoven for some scenes in A Clockwork Orange. But there doesn't seem to be much point in hiring a composer who, however good he may be, is not a Mozart or a Beethoven..."
jc-12.16.04

Alison Castle previews her forthcoming book, The Stanley Kubrick Archives, from Taschen. Part One of the book is structured as a series of images, "from the opening sequence of Killerís Kiss to the final frames of Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrickís complete films will be presented chronologically and wordlessly via frame enlargements. A completely nonverbal experience." Oh boy. Via Green Cine Daily.
jc-07.30.04

Quick note on the Kubrick/Napoleon thing. A couple months ago we hooked up Jon Ronson's excellent piece in the Guardian about being let loose among the director's archive of materials, including a cabinet full of 25,000 index cards, each noting a specific incident in Napoleon's life. Ronson writes, "'Who made up the cards?' I ask. 'Stanley,' answers Tony [an employee at the Kubrick Estate] 'With some assistants.' 'How long did it take?' I ask. 'Years,' says Tony. 'The late 1960s.'"
jc-06.24.04

All work stops immediately. Productivity drains to zero. Hit 'Do Not Disturb' on the phone. Close door. Somebody in LaGrange find Kevin Guilfoile and get him to a computer. Now. Deep breath. Filmbrain has found a link to a PDF of Stanley Kubrick's 1969 Napolean screenplay, including production notes and it took me three damn weeks to stumble across it. Napolean to Tallyrand, "What you are talking about is a gamble on moderation -- when I gamble, I prefer to gamble on force." Sweet Jesus.
jc-06.24.04

"Two years after his death, Jon Ronson was invited to the Kubrick estate and let loose among the fabled archive." Citizen Kubrick from The Guardian. Required reading. Plus, Envisioning Kubrick an exhibition at the Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt. Thanks M.
jc-03.29.04

How Douglas Trumbull went about generating the "stargate" scenes in '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Martin Kelly has put together this guide for the more technically- challenged among us. Via Incoming Signalsjc-12.05.03

A script has surfaced for Stanley Kubrick's long-planned but never made film biography of Napoleon. There has periodically been talk of someone making the film but more likely we'll see it as a book first.jc-05.12.03

There's a new edition of Stanley Kubrick, A Visual Analysis out, the only book of it's kind to have been written with Kubrick's cooperation. Although the book was first published in 1971, Kubrick, just before his death, permitted the use of illustrations from his original film frames to be made for this edition.
js-06.14.02

Don't watch TV? You can still see the new AI spots here and here.
ms-05.18.01

The New Stanley Kubrick Collection (which hopes to satisfy us Kubrick geeks who were annoyed by the first attempt) is available for preorder at Amazon. Restored picture, digitally remastered sound in Dolby 5.1, and at least a few of the films are now in widescreen. Eyes Wide Shut is the R-rated American version, though, with the dumb pixelated heads in front of the naughty parts. Complete details and tech here.
kg-05.14.01

A look back through our archives reveals an obsession with the work of Stanley Kubrick and 2001: A Space Odyssey. That obsession was fed this weekend by a revealing look into the making of the film in the current Cinefex magazine. This special effects and modeling work was done before reliable motion-control even existed and some wireframe animations on the DiscoveryÌs control screens were shot using real wire. Unfortunately the text of the piece is not available online, but issue 85 is worth every cent of the $9 that it costs at the newsstand.
jc-04.18.01

As Kubrick week continues for no particular reason, here's a cool site with photos and descriptions of shooting locations in every Kubrick film.
kg-04.17.01

"Please make me a real boy." New AI trailer at countingdown.
ms-04.10.01

Stanley Kubrick fans like us were quite disappointed by the much ballyhooed "Kubrick Collection" on DVD. Warner Brothers claims that it was Kubrick's idea to release all his movies in mono and in full-screen format (as opposed to wide screen). A little hard to swallow, but rumor is there's another, fully remastered collection on its way.
kg-03.15.01

Great design at kubrick.org. (I'm going to link this site every time.)
jc-03.15.01

The official site for A.I., Steven Spielberg's movie from Stanley Kubrick's treatment of the Brian Aldiss story, Supertoys Last All Day Long. Much anticipated here. Much more info at Corona.
jc-11.28.00